Nearly half of the coveted hospitalizations are exactly what I suspected they were

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It’s the question many of us have been asking ourselves since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic more than a year and a half ago. How many of these horrific hospitalization figures that we keep hearing about speak and were there * with * and not * because of the virus itself?

After all, it is a highly contagious respiratory virus, so it will infect many people, including those in hospitals for other health reasons. However, information on this topic has been difficult, if not impossible, to obtain … that is, until researchers took on the difficult task of combing tens of thousands of VA hospital records to find a shocking statistic that could probably be true nationwide, almost HALF of Covid-19 “hospitalizations” in 2021 present with mild or asymptomatic cases. This means they are hospitalized for something else or they are being admitted (unnecessarily?) For a mild Covid case.

Here’s David Zweig from the Atlantic with the scoop:

[Researchers] analyzed the electronic records of nearly 50,000 COVID hospital admissions to more than 100 VA hospitals nationwide. They then checked whether each patient needed supplemental oxygen or had a blood oxygen level below 94%. (The latter criterion is based on the National Institutes of Health’s definition of “severe COVID”). If any of these conditions are met, the authors classify that patient as a moderate to severe disease; otherwise, the case was considered mild or asymptomatic.

The study found that from March 2020 to early January 2021 -before vaccination was widespread and before the Delta variant arrived-, the proportion of patients with mild or asymptomatic disease was 36%. However, from mid-January to the end of June 2021, this number increased to 48%. In other words, the study suggests that approximately half of all hospitalized patients appearing on COVID data boards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason or have had only a mild presentation of the disease.

In addition, Zweig writes, the study found that “the introduction of vaccines correlates strongly with a higher proportion of COVID hospital patients presenting with mild or asymptomatic diseases.”

Zweig concluded by explaining how Covid’s hospitalization rates “can be misleading, if not considered carefully.”

Clearly, many patients are seriously ill right now. We also know that hospital overcrowding by patients with COVID even with mild illnesses can have negative implications for patients who need other care. At the same time, this study suggests that hospitalization levels for COVID cannot be taken as a simple measure of the prevalence of serious or even moderate disease, as they could inflate actual figures by a factor of two. “As we try to move from cases to hospitalizations as a metric to drive policy and assess the level of risk for a community, a state, or a country,” Doron told me, referring to decisions about school closures , business restrictions, mask requirements, etc. , “We should refine the definition of hospitalization. Patients with COVID and not with COVID do not belong to the metric. “

Given the prevalence of hysterical headlines about hospitalizations, this is important information.

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